Sarafan ChEM-H
Showing 151-200 of 226 Results
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Lauren O'Connell
Associate Professor of Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe O'Connell lab studies how genetic and environmental factors contribute to biological diversity and adaptation. We are particularly interested in understanding (1) how behavior evolves through changes in brain function and (2) how animal physiology evolves through repurposing existing cellular components.
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Sergiu P. Pasca
Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsA critical challenge in understanding the intricate programs underlying development, assembly and dysfunction of the human brain is the lack of direct access to intact, functioning human brain tissue for detailed investigation by imaging, recording, and stimulation.
To address this, we are developing bottom-up approaches to generate and assemble, from multi-cellular components, human neural circuits in vitro and in vivo.
We introduced the use of instructive signals for deriving from human pluripotent stem cells self-organizing 3D cellular structures named brain region-specific spheroids/organoids. We demonstrated that these cultures, such as the ones resembling the cerebral cortex, can be reliably derived across many lines and experiments, contain synaptically connected neurons and non-reactive astrocytes, and can be used to gain mechanistic insights into genetic and environmental brain disorders. Moreover, when maintained as long-term cultures, they recapitulate an intrinsic program of maturation that progresses towards postnatal stages.
We also pioneered a modular system to integrate 3D brain region-specific organoids and study human neuronal migration and neural circuit formation in functional preparations that we named assembloids. We have actively applied these models in combination with studies in long-term ex vivo brain preparations to acquire a deeper understanding of human physiology, evolution and disease mechanisms.
We have carved a unique research program that combines rigorous in vivo and in vitro neuroscience, stem cell and molecular biology approaches to construct and deconstruct previously inaccessible stages of human brain development and function in health and disease.
We believe science is a community effort, and accordingly, we have been advancing the field by broadly and openly sharing our technologies with numerous laboratories around the world and organizing the primary research conference and the training courses in the area of cellular models of the human brain. -
Suzanne Pfeffer
Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor of Medical Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe major focus of our research is to understand the molecular basis of inherited Parkinson's Disease (PD). We focus on the LRRK2 kinase that is inappropriately activated in PD and how it phosphorylates Rab GTPases, blocking the formation of primary cilia in specific regions of the brain. The absence of primary cilia renders cells unable to carry out Hedgehog signaling that is critical for neuroprotective pathways that sustain dopamine neurons.
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Elizabeth Ponder
Executive Director, Sarafan ChEM-H
BioDr. Elizabeth Ponder joined Stanford ChEM-H in 2014 and is currently the Executive Director of Sarafan ChEM-H and the Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA). Dr. Ponder completed her Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at Stanford University in the laboratory of Dr. Matthew Bogyo. Her past work has included promoting public-private partnerships in the non-profit sector, managing multidisciplinary research in the higher education sector, and business development consulting in the for-profit biotech sector. Dr. Ponder joined ChEM-H from the University of California, Berkeley where she served as the Executive Director of the Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging & Neglected Diseases (CEND).
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Matthew Porteus
Sutardja Chuk Professor of Definitive and Curative Medicine
BioDr. Porteus was raised in California and was a local graduate of Gunn High School before completing A.B. degree in “History and Science” at Harvard University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and wrote an thesis entitled “Safe or Dangerous Chimeras: The recombinant DNA controversy as a conflict between differing socially constructed interpretations of recombinant DNA technology.” He then returned to the area and completed his combined MD, PhD at Stanford Medical School with his PhD focused on understanding the molecular basis of mammalian forebrain development with his PhD thesis entitled “Isolation and Characterization of TES-1/DLX-2: A Novel Homeobox Gene Expressed During Mammalian Forebrain Development.” After completion of his dual degree program, he was an intern and resident in Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and then completed his Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship in the combined Boston Chidlren’s Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Institute program. For his fellowship and post-doctoral research he worked with Dr. David Baltimore at MIT and CalTech where he began his studies in developing homologous recombination as a strategy to correct disease causing mutations in stem cells as definitive and curative therapy for children with genetic diseases of the blood, particularly sickle cell disease. Following his training with Dr. Baltimore, he took an independent faculty position at UT Southwestern in the Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry before again returning to Stanford in 2010 as an Associate Professor. During this time his work has been the first to demonstrate that gene correction could be achieved in human cells at frequencies that were high enough to potentially cure patients and is considered one of the pioneers and founders of the field of genome editing—a field that now encompasses thousands of labs and several new companies throughout the world. His research program continues to focus on developing genome editing by homologous recombination as curative therapy for children with genetic diseases but also has interests in the clonal dynamics of heterogeneous populations and the use of genome editing to better understand diseases that affect children including infant leukemias and genetic diseases that affect the muscle. Clinically, Dr. Porteus attends at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital where he takes care of pediatric patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
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Guillem Pratx
Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology (Radiation Physics)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Physical Oncology Lab is interested in making a lasting impact on translational cancer research by building novel physical tools and methods.
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Lei (Stanley) Qi
Associate Professor of Bioengineering
BioDr. Lei (Stanley) Qi is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering, an Institute Scholar at Sarafan ChEM-H, and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. He earned B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Tsinghua University and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 2014, Dr. Qi was a Systems Biology Faculty Fellow at UCSF.
Dr. Qi is a pioneer in CRISPR technology development, particularly in the areas of epigenetic regulation and chromatin DNA imaging. He invented the first nuclease-deactivated Cas9 (dCas9) system for targeted gene regulation in living cells. His lab has since expanded the CRISPR-dCas toolbox, including new tools and variants like hyperCas12a and the compact CasMINI. These new technologies have enabled CRISPRi and CRISPRa for targeted gene repression and activation in various cells and organisms, large-scale genetic perturbation screens, and precision epigenetic editing in primary cells. His lab also developed technologies for dynamic chromatin DNA imaging in live cells (LiveFISH), 3D genome structure manipulation (CRISPR-GO), and multiplexed transcriptome engineering (MEGA).
Dr. Qi has used these new technologies to make key discoveries in epigenetics, such as the synergistic functions of enhancer elements in cancer gene regulation, metabolic pathways in T cell dysfunction, and novel antivirals against RNA viruses. Dr. Qi’s current research explores synthetic biology, epigenetics, immune cell engineering, and innovative targets for gene therapy in immunology and neurobiology. -
Krishna Raghavan
Ph.D. Student in Chemistry, admitted Autumn 2024
Reader Grader, ChemistryBioKrishna is originally from the Detroit area of Michigan, and completed his undergraduate studies in biological chemistry and chemistry at the University of Chicago. He is currently a PhD student in Biophysical Chemistry at Stanford.
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Jianghong Rao
Professor of Radiology (Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford) and, by courtesy, of Chemistry
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProbe chemistry and nanotechnology for molecular imaging and diagnostics
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Kacper Rogala
Assistant Professor of Structural Biology and of Chemical and Systems Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur team is fascinated by how cells make growth decisions — to grow or not to grow. In order to grow, cells require nutrients, and we are unraveling how cells use specialized protein sensors and transporters to sense and traffic nutrients in between various compartments. We use approaches from structural biology, chemical biology, biophysics, biochemistry, and cell biology — to reveal the mechanisms of basic biological processes, and we develop chemical probes that modulate them.
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Florentine Rutaganira
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and of Developmental Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe use chemical tools to decipher the roles of key signaling networks in choanoflagellates, single-celled organisms that are the closest living relatives of animals. Choanoflagellates produce molecular signals essential for intercellular communication in animals and the presence of these molecules in choanoflagellates suggests that signaling components needed to communicate between cells is evolutionarily ancient. We aim to uncover new understanding of animal development, physiology and disease.
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Julien Sage
Elaine and John Chambers Professor of Pediatric Cancer and Professor of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe investigate the mechanisms by which normal cells become tumor cells, and we combine genetics, genomics, and proteomics approaches to investigate the differences between the proliferative response in response to injury and the hyperproliferative phenotype of cancer cells and to identify novel therapeutic targets in cancer cells.
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Kathleen M. Sakamoto
Shelagh Galligan Professor in the School of Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research focuses on the molecular pathways that regulate normal and aberrant blood cell development, including acute leukemia and bone marrow failure syndromes. We are also studying novel drugs for treatment of cancer.
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Julia Salzman
Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science, of Biochemistry and, by courtesy, of Statistics and of Biology
Current Research and Scholarly Interestsstatistical computational biology focusing on splicing, cancer and microbes
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Juan G. Santiago
Charles Lee Powell Foundation Professor
Current Research and Scholarly Interestshttp://microfluidics.stanford.edu/Projects/Projects.html
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Serena Sanulli
Assistant Professor of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study the organizing principles of the genome and how these principles regulate cell identity and developmental switches. We combine Biochemistry and Biophysical methods such as NMR and Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange-MS with Cell Biology, and Genetics to explore genome organization across length and time scales and understand how cells leverage the diverse biophysical properties of chromatin to regulate genome function.
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Ansuman Satpathy
Associate Professor of Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur lab works at the interface of immunology, cancer biology, and genomics to study cellular and molecular mechanisms of the immune response to cancer. In particular, we are leveraging high-throughput genomic technologies to understand the dynamics of the tumor-specific T cell response to cancer antigens and immunotherapies (checkpoint blockade, CAR-T cells, and others). We are also interested in understanding the impact of immuno-editing on the heterogeneity and clonal evolution of cancer.
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Elizabeth Sattely
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering
BioPlants have an extraordinary capacity to harvest atmospheric CO2 and sunlight for the production of energy-rich biopolymers, clinically used drugs, and other biologically active small molecules. The metabolic pathways that produce these compounds are key to developing sustainable biofuel feedstocks, protecting crops from pathogens, and discovering new natural-product based therapeutics for human disease. These applications motivate us to find new ways to elucidate and engineer plant metabolism. We use a multidisciplinary approach combining chemistry, enzymology, genetics, and metabolomics to tackle problems that include new methods for delignification of lignocellulosic biomass and the engineering of plant antibiotic biosynthesis.
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Nirao Shah
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator), of Neurobiology and, by courtesy, of Obstetrics and Gynecology
On Leave from 09/23/2024 To 03/15/2025Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study how our brains generate social interactions that differ between the sexes. Such gender differences in behavior are regulated by sex hormones, experience, and social cues. Accordingly, we are characterizing how these internal and external factors control gene expression and neuronal physiology in the two sexes to generate behavior. We are also interested in understanding how such sex differences in the healthy brain translate to sex differences in many neuro-psychiatric illnesses.
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Lucy Shapiro
Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor, Emerita
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsA basic question in developmental biology involves the mechanisms used to generate the three-dimensional organization of a cell from a one-dimensional genetic code. Our goal is to define these mechanisms using both molecular genetics and biochemistry.
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Naima G. Sharaf
Assistant Professor of Biology and, by courtesy, of Structural Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch in the lab bridges biology, microbiology, and immunology to translate lipoprotein research into therapeutics
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Carla Shatz
Sapp Family Provostial Professor and Professor of Biology and of Neurobiology
On Leave from 09/01/2024 To 08/31/2025Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe goal of research in the Shatz Laboratory is to discover how brain circuits are tuned up by experience during critical periods of development both before and after birth by elucidating cellular and molecular mechanisms that transform early fetal and neonatal brain circuits into mature connections. To discover mechanistic underpinnings of circuit tuning, the lab has conducted functional screens for genes regulated by neural activity and studied their function for vision, learning and memory.
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Mark Smith
Head of Medicinal Chemistry
BioDr. Mark Smith joined Stanford ChEM-H in May 2013 as the Head of the Medicinal Chemistry Knowledge Center. He graduated with a Ph.D. from the laboratory of Prof. Richard Stoodley at the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology (UMIST), where his research focused on the application of Lewis acid catalyzed hetero Diels-Alder reactions to the synthesis of novel disaccharide structures. In 2000, Dr. Smith joined the research laboratory of Prof. David Crich at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Here his research focused on the generation of new reagents for the synthesis of beta-mannosides from thioglycosides. From 2002 to 2013, Dr. Smith worked as a medicinal chemist in Roche’s research facilities both in Palo Alto, CA and then Nutley, NJ, where he specialized in antiviral research.
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Hyongsok Tom Soh
Professor of Radiology (Early Detection), of Electrical Engineering, of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering
BioDr. Soh received his B.S. with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science with Distinction from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. From 1999 to 2003, Dr. Soh served as the technical manager of MEMS Device Research Group at Bell Laboratories and Agere Systems. He was a faculty member at UCSB before joining Stanford in 2015. His current research interests are in analytical biotechnology, especially in high-throughput screening, directed evolution, and integrated biosensors.
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Edward I. Solomon
Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Photon Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProf. Solomon's work spans physical-inorganic, bioinorganic, and theoretical-inorganic chemistry, focusing on spectroscopic elucidation of the electronic structure of transition metal complexes and its contribution to reactivity. He has advanced our understanding of metal sites involved in electron transfer, copper sites involved in O2 binding, activation and reduction to water, structure/function correlations over non-heme iron enzymes, and correlation of biological to heterogeneous catalysis.
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David Solow-Cordero
Associate Director, High-Throughput Screening, Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA)
Current Role at StanfordAssociate Director, High-Throughput Screening Knowledge Center, , Sarafan ChEM-H and Innovative Medicine Accelerator (IMA)
This high-throughput screening (HTS) laboratory allows Stanford researchers and others to discover novel modulators of targets that otherwise would not be practical in industry. The center incorporates instrumentation (purchased with NCRR NIH Instrumentation grant numbers S10RR019513, S10RR026338, S10OD025004, and S10OD026899), databases, compound libraries, and personnel whose previous sole domains were in industry.
Among our instrumentation are a fully automated Molecular Devices ImageXpress Micro Confocal High-Content fluorescence microplate imager, with live cell, fluidics and phase contrast options, an Echo 655 Acoustic Dispense, a Thermo integrated HTS robotic system, a Caliper Life Sciences SciClone ALH3000 and an Agilent Bravo microplate liquid handler, and the BMG Clariostarplus, Tecan Infinite M1000 and M1000 PRO and Molecular Devices FlexStation II 384 fluorescence, luminescence and absorbance multimode microplate readers.
We have over 180,000 small molecules for compound screens, 15,000 cDNAs for genomic screens, and whole genome siRNA libraries targeting the human genome (the siARRAY whole human genome siRNA library from Dharmacon, targeting 21,000 human genes) and the mouse genome (Qiagen mouse whole genome siRNA set V1 against 22,124 genes).
The HTSKC main screening lab is located in ChEM-H W008, the cell-based assay development lab is located in CCSR Room 0133-North Wing, between the Transgenic Mouse Facility, and the Stanford Genomics Facility. -
Aaron F. Straight
Pfeiffer and Herold Families Professor, Professor of Biochemistry and, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study the biology of chromosomes. Our research is focused on understanding how chromosomal domains are specialized for unique functions in chromosome segregation, cell division and cell differentiation. We are particularly interested in the genetic and epigenetic processes that govern vertebrate centromere function, in the organization of the genome in the eukaryotic nucleus and in the roles of RNAs in the regulation of chromosome structure.
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Katrin J Svensson
Assistant Professor of Pathology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMolecular metabolism
Protein biochemistry
Cell biology and function
Animal physiology -
James Swartz
James H. Clark Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and of Bioengineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProgram Overview
The world we enjoy, including the oxygen we breathe, has been beneficially created by biological systems. Consequently, we believe that innovative biotechnologies can also serve to help correct a natural world that non-natural technologies have pushed out of balance. We must work together to provide a sustainable world system capable of equitably improving the lives of over 10 billion people.
Toward that objective, our program focuses on human health as well as planet health. To address particularly difficult challenges, we seek to synergistically combine: 1) the design and evolution of complex protein-based nanoparticles and enzymatic systems with 2) innovative, uniquely capable cell-free production technologies.
To advance human health we focus on: a) achieving the 120 year-old dream of producing “magic bullets”; smart nanoparticles that deliver therapeutics or genetic therapies only to specific cells in our bodies; b) precisely designing and efficiently producing vaccines that mimic viruses to stimulate safe and protective immune responses; and c) providing a rapid point-of-care liquid biopsy that will count and harvest circulating tumor cells.
To address planet health we are pursuing biotechnologies to: a) inexpensively use atmospheric CO2 to produce commodity biochemicals as the basis for a new carbon negative chemical industry, and b) mitigate the intermittency challenges of photovoltaic and wind produced electricity by producing hydrogen either from biomass sugars or directly from sunlight.
More than 25 years ago, Professor Swartz began his pioneering work to develop cell-free biotechnologies. The new ability to precisely focus biological systems toward efficiently addressing new, “non-natural” objectives has proven tremendously useful as we seek to address the crucial and very difficult challenges listed above. Another critical feature of the program is the courage (or naivete) to approach important objectives that require the development and integration of several necessary-but- not-sufficient technology advances.
